The American Booksellers Association Annual Meeting and Town Hall was presented via Zoom yesterday, with outgoing president Tegan Tigani, ceo Allison Hill, and other board members sharing updates and fielding questions from booksellers. Tigani said in her introductory remarks: “The last year has been challenging. The turnover on our board mirrors turnover many of us are seeing in our stores. Our industry is experiencing high rates of burnout and churn.” She noted that booksellers are feeling strain from “reworking a school order to fit the parameters of a new budget, from testifying or waiting to testify in the Texas House […]
Archives for May 2025
Bloomsbury Sales Flatten and Profits Fall, as the World Waits for a New Maas Book
Bloomsbury reported preliminary results for the full year ended February 28, with sales up 5 percent to £361 million, from £343 million a year ago — though organic sales were flat, since Roman & Littlefield contributed £19.8 million in sales in the nine months since they joined the company. Profit before taxation and highlighted items fell 14 percent to £42.1 million. This is a big change from the first half of the year, when sales were up 32 percent to £180 million and profits gained 50 percent to £26.6 million. The boom is attributed to the Sarah J. Maas effect, […]
People 5/22
Distribution: PRH Pulls Comics from Diamond
Penguin Random House will stop distributing to direct-market comic book stores though Diamond Comic Distributors, Bleeding Cool reports. In a letter to retailers, PRH writes, “Going forward, all Penguin Random House sales into the US Direct Market will be handled by our in-house sales team.” Any titles with an on-sale date after June 25 will be handled by PRH. Marvel, Dark Horse, and IDW titles had previously been sub-distributed by Diamond. The move follows Diamond’s rollercoaster Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.
Buzz Books Fall/Winter Season Preview: Essays, Criticism, Biography, and Memoir
Our season previews continue with Part 1 of Nonfiction. As always, excerpts of asterisked titles are available to read right now in our free ebook collection, Buzz Books 2025: Fall/Winter. Plus, we are excited for our first-ever Nonfiction Editors & Authors Panel on June 5 from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM Eastern. Register now to hear from Char Adams, Christine Kuehn, Angela Buchdahl, and Dr. Gerta Keller and their editors. This season’s books cover current events, cultural criticism, and creative lives, while collected works across genres feature new and well-loved pieces from celebrated writers. In new collections of essays, Zadie Smith studies art of […]
Harper Collins Says Fake Blurbs Attributed to Lisa Ko Are Being Fixed
Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers and Memory Piece, posted on Bluesky on Tuesday that fake blurbs attributed to her have appeared on the web pages of many books, including a number of Harper Collins titles. (Ko’s latest novel was published by Riverhead). She wrote that the AI-generated booklist run by the Chicago Sun-Times reminded her “that I’ve been credited as blurbing hundreds of books I never have, including books by Patti Smith, Amy Tan, Sidney Sheldon, Joyce Maynard, and Elmore Leonard? And I can’t get these fake blurbs taken off publisher and bookstore websites?” The thread continued, “I only became […]